Doggerel Protest
A poet may poetize a pound
but God help the man
who has to ram
into a poem a kilogram;
nor can a man be ever found
to make a liter
just enough neater
to fit into the ideal meter.
And we'll find it worse,
do what we can,
to give a gram
to a word that merely slams;
it sounds like a foolish curse.
All good sense they cast from hence
in decimal drear
which cost us dear
in the pursuit of something clear
which lost us shilling and pence.
